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On 11 Aug 2004 01:23:28 GMT, (PENMART01) wrote:

>>Kenneth (who failed basic science) writes:
>>
>Rodney Myrvaagnes wrote:
>>
>>>Unfortunately the oven is important. :-(
>>
>>A massive baking stone can easily be brought to a temperature about
>>200F higher than the (home) oven's nominal maximum.
>
>If you could show us how then the price of oil would drop to about 2¢ a gallon
>and all the friggin' muslim scum buckets could go about screwing their
>camels... plus you'd win the Nobel Prize.... but thou art the EPITOMY of a
>****ING IDIOT! I won't even ask what's a "nominal maximus"... sounds like a
>disease where you're afflicted with a small asshole and full of big shit.
>
>---= BOYCOTT FRANCE (belgium) GERMANY--SPAIN =---
> ---= Move UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
> *********
>"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
>Sheldon
>````````````

Hello again,

Sheldon, you know a bit more about infantile invective than you do
about (high school) physics, so, here goes:

An empty home oven is essentially a box of heated air.

It has a thermostat that tests the temperature of the air. The oven's
"nominal maximum" is just the highest temperature to which the oven
can be set. Let's assume for the sake of this conversation, that the
maximum to which the oven can be set is 500F.

Let's assume that we have set the oven to that maximum and that the
oven has run for a while. When the thermostat measures the internal
temperature of the oven and finds it to be 500F the thermostat turns
the heat source off. The air in the oven soon starts to cool off, and
eventually, the thermostat turns the heat source on. Of course, the
heat source does not kick on when the thermostat senses a drop in
temperature of only a degree or two. It is typically set to cycle on
and off with a differential of 20 or 30 degrees. There are other names
for that "gap", but it is sometimes called the thermostat's "swing."

In any case the oven heats to the "maximum" temperature, turns of for
a while, cools a bit, heats to the maximum again, cools etc. as its
heat source cycles maintaining a temperature somewhere around the 500F
to which we had it set.

(Are you still with me Sheldon...? It is about to get more
complicated...)

Now, suppose that our oven were not empty, but instead had a heavy
slab of stone on a grate.

As before, the oven would heat to an air temperature of 500F (the
nominal maximum) but that would take much longer than in our first
example because the stone absorbs a tremendous amount of heat; but,
eventually, as before, the thermostat would sense that the temperature
of the air in the oven had reached 500F.

Then, as before, the thermostat would turn off the heat source, sense
the temperature of the internal air, turning the heat source on again
when the temperature of the air got sufficiently low.

But, (Sheldon?), the stone will not cool off as quickly as would the
air in the oven. It took a long time to heat up, and it will take a
long time to cool.

So, with each cycle of the thermostat, the stone slowly gets hotter
than the surrounding air.

I did just this for about fifteen years. The maximum temperature to
which my oven could be set was (IIRC) 500F and (though it took a
while) I could get the stone up to about 750F. I measured it
temperature with an accurate contact thermometer.

It works. It's easy. And it is certainly worth a try for anyone who
wants to do a great pizza in their home oven.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

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